Here's how the story unfolded.

Shortly after the execution, the British gay rights organization Outrage! posted a release on its website titled "Iran executes gay teenagers." Based on a translation of the ISNA story by Outrage!, and reports from the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and the website Iran Focus, the Outrage! release stated, "Two gay teenagers were publicly executed in Iran on 19 July 2005 for the 'crime' of homosexuality." Outrage! correctly noted that under Iranian penal code, homosexual intercourse is punishable by death. They dismissed the allegation of rape under two possible scenarios: one, that it may have been a "trumped up charge to undermine public sympathy for the youths," or two, that the 13-year-old boy was a "willing participant but that Iranian law (like UK law) deems that no person of that age is capable of sexual consent and that therefore any sexual contact is automatically deemed in law to be a sex assault."

Peter Tatchell, a gay and human rights campaigner with Outrage!, was quoted in the release saying "this is just the latest barbarity by the Islamo-fascists in Iran...the entire country is a gigantic prison, with Islamic rule sustained by detention without trial, torture and state-sanctioned murder." Tatchell criticized the British Labour government for "pursuing friendly relations with this murderous regime" and urged "the international community to treat Iran as a pariah state, break off diplomatic relations, impose trade sanctions and give practical support to the democratic and left opposition inside Iran."

At about the same time, Andrew Sullivan posted an entry on his blog titled "Islamists Versus Gays" that also claimed that the two teenage boys were hanged by the "Islamo-fascist regime in Iran" for "being gay." He published an e-mail from an unidentified gay soldier that read: "Your post on the Islamo-fascist hanging/murder of the two gay men confirmed for me that my recent decision to join the US military was correct. I have to stuff myself back in the closet...but our war on terror trumps my personal comfort at this point. Whenever my friends and family criticize--I'll show 'em that link." Sullivan concluded his original post by saying, "I'm saddened that more gay organizations haven't rallied to the war against Muslim religious fanatics. This is our war too."

Sullivan would soon get his wish. Outrage!'s release was quickly picked up by several gay bloggers, most notably Doug Ireland, as well as by online gay websites such as 365gay.com, planetout.com and pageoneq.com, all of which operated on the assumption that Marhoni and Asgari were "gay teenagers" executed for the charge of "homosexuality" itself. Gay City News and the Washington Blade also ran stories on the execution that covered both the hanging and the controversy surrounding it. In his debut as a columnist for the Blade, discredited former White House press corps member Jeff Gannon (a k a James Guckert) mentioned the executions, puzzlingly claiming that gay bloggers and media were not paying enough attention to the case.

Ireland's initial blog entry, dated July 21, was titled "Iran Executes 2 Gay Teenagers" and included links to the ISNA article as it appears in Farsi on its website, the NCRI and Iran Focus stories and the Outrage! statement. Relying on Outrage!'s account and translation, Ireland concluded at the time that "the Iranian authorities are putting out a cover story that the two boys had participated in the rape of a 13-year-old." He then accused the Murdoch-owned Times of London for repeating "the Iranian government's story as a virtual statement of fact" (almost all mainstream Western news outlets, including the AP and the New York Times, eventually reported the incident as an execution of minors for rape). Like Outrage!, Ireland claimed "there is no mention of this Iranian government accusation in the original ISNA report." Ireland urged readers to "follow the suggestion of the Human Rights Campaign which--citing this blog--has written to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanding that she formally protest these executions."

The HRC letter, dated July 22, called on the State Department of "the world's greatest democracy" to issue an "immediate and strong condemnation" of the execution of "two Iranian teenagers" who were "hanged in a public square after being tortured for 14 months, simply for being caught having consensual sex." It makes no mention of the rape allegations. (The State Department has taken no official position on the executions).

On July 26 the Log Cabin Republicans weighed in with a statement that began, "In the wake of news stories and photographs documenting the hanging of two gay Iranian teenagers, Log Cabin Republicans re-affirm their commitment to the global war on terror." Log Cabin president Patrick Guerriero said, "This barbarous slaughter clearly demonstrates the stakes in the global war on terror. Freedom must prevail over radical Islamic extremism." Their release too failed to mention allegations of rape. (The Log Cabin Republicans did not return phone calls requesting an interview).

The Dutch gay organization COC (Center for Culture and Leisure) also protested the execution of "two gay teenagers" in Iran and called on the Netherlands to strongly condemn the execution and pressure the EU to impose sanctions on Iran. (The Netherlands has been embroiled in a "Dutch-Muslim Culture War" since the murders of gay right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn and filmmaker Theo van Gogh [see Deborah Scroggins, June 27].) The EU eventually protested the execution as a matter of the execution of juveniles, but has taken no further action.

So it was that Outrage!'s press release came to inspire an escalating series of demands and actions: a quixotic barrage of letters to the Secretary of State (the United States maintains no diplomatic relations with Iran), appeals to the greatest democracy in the world to defend freedom against Islamic extremism, calls for the gay movement (and even individual would-be gay soldiers) to join the fight against "Islamo-fascism" and pleas to European governments to sever ties with Iran and impose sanctions--at a time when the EU was engaged in delicate negotiations with Iran over its nuclear capacity. The story of "two gay teenagers executed in Iran" was a compelling narrative that, particularly for gay organizations with little to no international experience, confirmed the universality of gay identity. It offered up an unambiguous conflict between "Islamo-fascism" and Western democracy, and perhaps most important, it placed acceptance of gay rights at the very heart of the latter.

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